Sunday, June 10, 2012

A rite of girlhood - or so I thought

When I was 5 years old I begged and begged my mom to let me get my ears pierced. We talked about it pretty extensively - how they pierced ears (by sticking a needle through) and how it would take SIX whole weeks to heal and how during that time I would have to wear the boring "studs" and not take them out and clean them so so well. Oh and not until I was 12 would I get to wear earrings that "dangled".

One day my mom and my best friend's mom took us to Market Square in downtown Casper.

I don't remember who went first. But I remember the tears welling up in my eyes and I remember the pain. But I remember that I was NOT going to cry.

My best friend didn't have as good of luck - she got one ear pierced and sometime later her mom took her back down to get the other.

I took such good care of my newly pierced ears, cleaning them twice daily, rotating them so that they didn't get stuck and grow into my ears.

My dad wasn't a fan of pierced ears and from my mom's tales, her taking me to get my ears done did NOT go over well.

When staying at his house one summer when I was an early teenager, I pierced my own ears again. I experienced the silence when he discovered my pierced ear.

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I have been secretly buying little earrings - pink "gem" Disney studs, ladybug studs and I have my collection of earrings from when I was a kid set aside for my daughter.

At 5 years old, I kept expecting her to request pierced ears and looked forward to the happy day when I explained to her the process, how it hurts a bit, but doesn't later, how she has to clean her new holes well, rotate the studs and not wear dangly earrings.

A few months ago while watching me get ready, the topic came up.

"Wait mommy, you are putting your earrings THROUGH your ears!" she noted. "Why is that?"

"Well I have my ears pierced," I announced, "so I put earrings through my ears! See!" And I proudly showed her all my earrings and the holes in my ears.

She got this freaked out look on her face and quickly said, "I am NEVER doing that!"

"You don't want your ears pierced?" I asked her.

"Never, no way!" she answered without hesitation.

"Well maybe you will want them done later," I told her.

"Nope, never," she declared.

I dropped it confident that she would revisit the topic in a week or so after thinking about it and she would BEG me to take her and get them pierced.

Nope.

Every few weeks she sees someone her age with pierced ears and whinces just in looking at them.

And every couple weeks she begs me not to hurt myself by putting earrings IN my earlobes when in fact I can simply borrow stickers from her to put on them instead.

And I sigh and then reassure her that I am in no pain and that I actually like my earrings.

And she shrugs and declares once again - because I haven't heard enough - "no way am I EVER getting my ears pierced."

And she is stubborn enough... yeah I am no longer picking up cute little earrings to stash away for her.